Military service of Ian Smith

rdf:langString Military service of Ian Smith

rdf:langString Ian Smith

rdf:langString Ian Smith

rdf:langString Cape Town, South Africa

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rdf:langString A map of Italy, showing the location of Sassello in the north-west of the country

rdf:langString A portrait photograph of a young man in an air force uniform

rdf:langString * Middle Eastern Campaign * Italian campaign

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rdf:langString Smith as a flying officer

rdf:langString Downed behind German lines in northern Italy, near Sassello, Smith spent three months fighting with local partisans, then headed west, hoping to meet Allied troops in southern France

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rdf:langString His right eye was fixed in a continuous squint, like a man sighting down a gun barrel. As he talked, his lantern-jawed face remained almost expressionless—as it has ever since 1943...

rdf:langString — Lee Hall in an interview with Smith for Life magazine, 1966

rdf:langString The future Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith served in the Royal Air Force (RAF) during the Second World War, interrupting his studies at Rhodes University in South Africa to join up in 1941. Following a year's pilot instruction in Southern Rhodesia under the Empire Air Training Scheme, he was posted to No. 237 (Rhodesia) Squadron, then stationed in the Middle East, in late 1942. Smith received six weeks' operational training in the Levant, then entered active service as a pilot officer in Iran and Iraq. No. 237 Squadron, which had operated in the Western Desert from 1941 to early 1942, returned to that front in March 1943. Smith flew in the Western Desert until October that year, when a crash during a night takeoff resulted in serious injuries, including facial disfigurements and a broken jaw. Following reconstructive plastic surgery to his face, other operations and five months' convalescence, Smith rejoined No. 237 Squadron in Corsica in May 1944. While there, he attained his highest rank, flight lieutenant. In late June 1944, during a strafing attack on a railway yard in the Po Valley in northern Italy, Smith was shot down by anti-aircraft fire. Parachuting from his aircraft, he landed without serious injury in the Ligurian Alps, in an area that was behind German lines, but largely under the control of anti-German Italian partisans. Smith spent three months working with the local resistance movement before trekking westwards, across the Maritime Alps, with three other Allied personnel, hoping to join up with the Allied forces that had just invaded southern France. After 23 days' hiking, he and his companions were recovered by American troops and repatriated. Smith was briefly stationed in Britain before he was posted to No. 130 (Punjab) Squadron in western Germany in April 1945. He flew combat missions there until Germany surrendered in May. He remained with No. 130 Squadron for the rest of his service, and returned home at the end of 1945. After completing his studies at Rhodes, he was elected to the Legislative Assembly for his birthplace, Selukwe, in 1948. He became Prime Minister in 1964, during his country's dispute with Britain regarding the terms for independence; Smith was influenced as a politician by his wartime experiences, and Rhodesia's military record on behalf of Britain became central to his sense of betrayal by post-war British governments. This partly motivated his administration's Unilateral Declaration of Independence in 1965. His status as a Second World War RAF veteran helped him win support, both domestically and internationally.

rdf:langString Prime Minister of Rhodesia